Message in a bottle : a tale of two Triassic temnospondyl (labyrinthodont) femora from Tasmania

In 1997 the senior author, while exploring the antique shops of Hobart, found in Suffolk Park Antiques an intriguing small, nineteenth-century, clear glass bottle. Labelled as "message in a bottle", it did indeed contain a note on a slip, cut from a visiting card, together with a wafer-thin, sub-triangular piece of dark, porous material (pl. 1). The handwritten note read "section shaft humerus labryinthodont, sandstone quarry, Hobart, 1856, Tas Museum".A further annotation, written at right angles to the preceding note, appears to read "Pro R.S.T 1898-9". Pro R.S.T. is an abbreviated reference to the Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania, 1898-99. This issue of the journal included a short note by WH. Twelvetrees and WF. Petterd describing and illustrating two labyrinthodont bones from Tasmania lodged in the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) collection. Here we trace the history of the two temnospondyl (labyrinthodont) bones, review the significance of these specimens and propose an explanation as to how part of one specimen came to be in the Suffolk Park Antiques sho

Oldest Known Eucalyptus Macrofossils Are from South America

The evolutionary history of Eucalyptus and the eucalypts, the larger clade of seven genera including Eucalyptus that today have a natural distribution almost exclusively in Australasia, is poorly documented from the fossil record. Little physical evidence exists bearing on the ancient geographical distributions or morphologies of plants within the clade. Herein, we introduce fossil material of Eucalyptus from the early Eocene (ca. 51.9 Ma) Laguna del Hunco paleoflora of Chubut Province, Argentina; specimens include multiple leaves, infructescences, and dispersed capsules, several flower buds, and a single flower. Morphological similarities that relate the fossils to extant eucalypts include leaf shape, venation, and epidermal oil glands; infructescence structure; valvate capsulate fruits; and operculate flower buds. The presence of a staminophore scar on the fruits links them to Eucalyptus, and the presence of a transverse scar on the flower buds indicates a relationship to Eucalyptus subgenus Symphyomyrtus. Phylogenetic analyses of morphological data alone and combined with aligned sequence data from a prior study including 16 extant eucalypts, one outgroup, and a terminal representing the fossils indicate that the fossils are nested within Eucalyptus. These are the only illustrated Eucalyptus fossils that are definitively Eocene in age, and the only conclusively identified extant or fossil eucalypts naturally occurring outside of Australasia and adjacent Mindanao. Thus, these fossils indicate that the evolution of the eucalypt group is not constrained to a single region. Moreover, they strengthen the taxonomic connections between the Laguna del Hunco paleoflora and extant subtropical and tropical Australasia, one of the three major ecologic-geographic elements of the Laguna del Hunco paleoflora. The age and affinities of the fossils also indicate that Eucalyptus subgenus Symphyomyrtus is older than previously supposed. Paleoecological data indicate that the Patagonian Eucalyptus dominated volcanically disturbed areas adjacent to standing rainforest surrounding an Eocene caldera lake

Type, figured and mentioned fossil invertebrates in the Queensland Museum

Volume: 28Start Page: 665End Page: 71

Tertiary occurrence of the fern Lygodium (Schizaeaceae) in Australia and New Zealand

Volume: 32Start Page: 203End Page: 22

The subtribe Hicksbeachiinae (Proteaceae) in the Australian Tertiary

Volume: 32Start Page: 195End Page: 20

Cypsela morphology and a reassessment of the record of Omalotheca supina (Asteraceae) from Tasmania

Volume: 15Start Page: 65End Page: 6

The Tasmanian species of Philotheca (Rutaceae)

Volume: 15Start Page: 19End Page: 2

Notes on the Philotheca myoporoides complex (Rutaceae) in Victoria

Volume: 15Start Page: 15End Page: 1

Palmoxylon queenslandicum: a permineralised Oligocene palm trunk from near Springsure, south-eastern Queensland

A permineralised palm trunk segment from an Oligocene deposit near Springsure in southeastern Queensland is described. The palm shows some affinities to the extant tribes Corypheae (in particular to the genera Livistona and Licuala), and Caryoteae. However, as it differs from them in a number of features and there are no unique diagnostic stem or root anatomical features which define most other extant palm genera, the fossil is assigned to the form genus Palmoxylon as the new species P. queenslandicum.John G. Conran and Andrew C. Rozefeld